It’s a few days after Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday, and Rebecca Watson is posted up at the Asgard, a popular bar down the road from MIT, passing out leaflets promoting an upcoming “Skeptics in the Pub” event. The flyers suggest evolutionary-themed pickup lines: “I’d like to sail my HMS Beagle right into your Galapagos” and “If I were an enzyme, I would be DNA Helicase so I could unzip your genes.”

The last time the Boston Skeptics gathered for Sunday brunch, they consumed 28 pancakes. (They keep records.) This time, they’ve been joined by members of the Boston Atheists group, so more than 40 diners overflow two long tables in the back room of the Asgard, guzzling coffee, ordering breakfast, and chatting about Battlestar Galactica — poised to break the pancake record.

But in the end, the flapjack tally somehow falls short. The tab, nevertheless, comes to $554 (including tip). People start tossing cash around. Then Scott Frazer, a 23-year-old software engineer from Brighton, throws down a credit card, complicating everything.

Skeptics aren’t just assholes, though. When they’re not counting pancakes or making natural-selection puns, the Boston Skeptics double as public advocates for the cause of critical reasoning. They worship the scientific method and insist on filtering everything, from religion to the color of the sky, through experimental verification and critical reasoning.

“A lot of people, I think, get the false impression that science is something that only happens in a lab,” says Watson, “when, in fact, science is just a really great way of sorting things out, of stripping away your own senses, which can be fooled, and understanding how you can be fooled.”

They host talks at local bars — where guest speakers hold forth on topics ranging from atheism to the abuse of quantum mechanics — and organize field trips. They attend Harvard’s Humanist of the Year award ceremonies together. In December, 40 skeptics descended on Boston’s Museum of Science to browse the cryptozoology exhibits. They also just screw around.

The pies, pancakes, and pilsners are the skeptics’ comforting props — the glue of a community reinforcing what can be a lonely, challenging way to look at things. Members frequently discuss “interfacing” (i.e., coping) with a world that runs on blind faith.

Enter the Skepchick
Watson, a T-shirt-and-jeans kind of girl with geeky glasses and an ebullient demeanor, worked her way through Boston University as a magician. In 2005, while attending the Amaz!ng Meeting — an annual skeptics conference organized by magician and paranormal debunker James Randi — Watson was inspired to start a blog called Skepchick, which focuses on psychics, self-image, and “anything on Oprah, pretty much,” sorting fact from fiction, especially in areas where women may be targeted. Like a lot of skeptical activity, it’s done with a sense of humor; one of Skepchick’s early successes was a pin-up calendar featuring scantily clad female skeptics, Watson included.

'Curiouser' encounters at the Museum of Natural History The exhibit "Curiouser: New Encounters with the Victorian Natural History Collection" in the lobby of the Museum of Natural History takes as its title Alice's exclamation of surprise early in her adventures down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland .

Review: The Pirates! Band of Misfits Peter Lord, animator behind claymation staples Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run , directs this very British, very dry romp on the high seas during the time when Britannia did indeed rule the waves.

Review: Creation God-fearing creationists won't find anything to worry them in Jon Amiel's stiff, stodgy, PBS-style telling of the life of Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) during the time he was writing (slowly, very slowly) The Origin of Species .

Killer plants, ‘without remorse’ On display behind a glass enclosure at the New England Carnivorous Plant Society's seventh annual show was a rare book, not a plant.

Some kind of salvation In 2008, Sean Faircloth, then a state representative from Bangor, lost his bid to become Maine's attorney general, mostly because lots of legislators questioned his credibility. When your credibility is so shaky that even politicians notice, you have a serious problem. It's sort of like if atheists complained about your ungodliness.

High-powered hybrid "It's pretty much impossible for us to have a predictable sound," said Rosalind Raskin earlier this week while discussing The Friend Ship (Moose Proof Records), the full-length debut from Roz Raskin and the Rice Cakes ( MySpace.com/RozRaskin ).

Ideas and emotions Grace takes place in the recent memories of the title character as well as in her difficult present. The basic concern here, which nags her like a toothache, is the non-existence of the divine.

Award-worthy The amount of research that Jason Notte conducted for his extensive article on the surge in suicides in the military is worthy of a Pulitzer Prize.

NOT-SO-SURE GUYS | March 19, 2009 It’s a few days after Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday, and Rebecca Watson is posted up at the Asgard, a popular bar down the road from MIT, passing out leaflets promoting an upcoming “Skeptics in the Pub” event.

HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT | January 26, 2009 "So easy to learn, so hard to win." That's how Somerville resident Brian Loring describes the timeless game of rock-paper-scissors.

REAL TIME SAVERS | December 17, 2008 Breaking news: scientists have eradicated the social malady known as "watch tan." The cure, of course, was the advent of the cell phone.

COMICS AND CRAFTS UNITE | December 12, 2008 What differentiates Comicazi-con from this past month's Boston Comic Con, sponsored by Framingham's Bedrock Comics, is the big-tent approach. Comicazi-con won't be focusing solely on comics, but will include local merchants.